There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes: “To those who know how to wait, time opens every door”. And evidently that's what Guanyu Zhou thinks. Formula 1 returns to China this weekend after a five-year absence and regardless of Sunday's victory, the local star will be Zhou himself. Yes, because despite his mediocre results (to be good) Zhou is an absolute celebrity in China.
In 48 races since 2022 he has yet to finish on the podium and in the 2023 world standings he placed 18th with just six points in 22 races. Of course, Sauber isn't helping him today (in the last race two weeks ago in Japan he retired due to a gearbox failure) but numbers don't count for much in the search for a hero in F1.
Zhou, in fact, has just become the protagonist of a new film and is much loved by sponsors looking for a link with China. And, given the economic power of the Country of the Great Wall, from an economic point of view Zhou is almost as good as Verstappen. And he is aware of this and therefore charges the crowd and sponsors: “With a Chinese driver on the grid – he explained – we will write history”. And it is no coincidence that, when he arrived at the drivers' press conference on Thursday, the questions were all for him. Riots mostly on topics ranging from economics to Chinese politics, including the potential future of the flourishing automotive industry. An enormous pressure that forced Zhou to work all last week for promotional activities and meetings with sponsors, financiers and fans.
“I've been extremely busy, probably the busiest man in Shanghai for the last week and a half,” he joked, but the country's support is strong. And since that “country” is China, Zhou Guanyu's power is colossal. “The pressure – continues the driver – obviously in this race is a little higher, but I don't think it's stronger for me than my debut in Formula 1”. Will be. But given the chaos of these days, three years in F1 are certainly not enough to be ready for this gigantic pressure. Zhou, in fact, was born in Shanghai and, although he spent many of his formative years in England, Sunday's Chinese GP is a homecoming. The last F1 race in China was held in 2019 and the next four were canceled during the pandemic.
This is why GP tickets sold out in a flash. The Zhou effect is felt. It is no coincidence that the film about his life is being distributed today, Friday, by the Shanghai Media Group, a state-owned company and one of China's largest media conglomerates. The 90-minute Chinese-language documentary is entitled “The First One” and is a piece of the complicated puzzle that the Government has put together to support the GP: the race is part of a national campaign to attract tourists back to China after the pandemic. An enormous economic effort to prevent companies from moving investments out of the country and to underline the link with the automotive world. Electric or not.
And while China has historically never done anything in the world of motor racing (Shanghai only held its first GP in 2004), in an official statement last month, the Chinese General Administration of Sports, together with the Ministry of Commerce and of Culture, indicated that sporting events are an absolute priority. This is because it has been definitively recognized that “the global benefits of sporting events and cultural tourism” are fundamental to “fully unleash consumption potential”.
From this point of view, there is a lot to do because the national statistics office declared that 82.03 million tourists arrived in China in 2023, down from the 145.31 million in 2019. This is why visitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are counted this way today. And here's why Zhou is so important: The pilot is part of the effort to show the global community that China is open for business and tourism. And it's no coincidence that his racing helmet will show details of the Shanghai Metro and famous city landmarks. Zhou perhaps no longer has to wait: time has already opened every door for him.
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